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3 Paleo Tips

Changing your diet is always hard.  Initially, I was miserable with the Whole30 program and my switch to paleo.  Now that we completed the Whole30 we are sticking with the paleo diet.  Here are 3 tips and tricks that helped us complete the Whole30 and stick with it.

Cauliflower Rice

The first time I ate cauliflower, EVER, was in January.  We made a curry and instead of rice, we used a recipe from Well Fed, to make cauliflower rice.  It enhanced the flavors of the curry.  I realized that I never ate rice or pasta necessarilly for the flavor they added to the dish, but rather as a sauce soaker upper.  Now whenever I’m making a dish and I want to have something soak up a sauce, I use cauliflower rice.  The other week we made pork souvlaki from Michael Symon which has a delicious marinade.  Instead of pasta or couscous, I made cauliflower rice with some fennel seeds, fresh garlic, and italian seasoning to soak up the extra marinade.  Definitely don’t miss regular old rice anymore.

Just Use Chicken

I grew up eating a lot of pasta.  In fact, I still eat it, kinda.  I’ve found that if I’m craving a comforting tomato sauce pasta dish, I can just cook up some chicken breast with salt, pepper and garlic and put tomato sauce right on top.  I’ve used this technique with a couple of different sauces and it’s a great way for me to still enjoy those “pasta” dishes and sauces with eating any pasta.  Another favorite is pasta primavera.  We follow this recipe but instead of roasting the zucchini with the rest of the veggies we make zucchini noodles.

Licorice Root & Herbal Tea

When we first made the paleo switch I was always thirsty and sick of drinking water.  I tried seltzer water with lemon or lime which helped somewhat.  Finally I started making more herbal tea for something flavorful to drink.  My favorite is mint tea with licorice root.  Licorice root actually adds sweetness to the tea.

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Paleo – Kinda My Style

I wanted to hate this diet.  In fact, I hated it for the first 2-3 weeks.  I didn’t want to give up pasta and bread forever.  However week 3 into week 4 I started to notice some improvements.

I was sleeping better.  I would fall asleep around 10:30 and when Desi woke me up at 5:30 I was ready to get up and start my day.

My energy level and mood stabilized.  During the day I didn’t have energy crashes or mood swings.  This is what I really wanted to achieve with the diet.

I feel healthier.  I didn’t lose pounds, but I lost 2 inches around my hips and 1 inch around my waist.  My percentage body fat dropped by 1%.  When I started the diet I didn’t even know I had some “weight” to lose.  I didn’t change my workout routine, but I did feel more excited to exercise (probably because of my improved energy level).

So now the big question is if I’m going to stick with it.  I want to, perhaps a little more relaxed than the full Whole30.  I might have a glass of wine with dinner a few nights a week.  I think we will add aged cheeses back in (cheddar, parmesan), but hopefully less than we were eating before.  I wanted to add milk back in, but I think I lost my lactose tolerance over the past 30 days.  Now I need to decide if I want to build up a tolerance again.  I want to wait to add grains back in.  If I do it would be a minimal amount.  We talked about doing Tim Ferris’ slow-carb diet with cheat day; one day a week we would allow ourselves to have dessert, pasta, etc.  I fear that the cheat day would just make me miss those foods all over again.  However, after eating milk and cookies one post-diet night, I can see that with a reminder of how some of these foods make you feel, you miss them a whole lot less.

The hardest part of this diet for me is eating with friends.  I don’t want to be “that” friend who everyone has to make special cooking considerations for and has trouble finding something on the menu to eat (which is silly because it doesn’t bother me finding something that friends can eat who do have dietary restrictions).  In general, it can be difficult for me to do something that I fear will inconvenience others in some way.  I also don’t like feeling like the weird/different one (you’d think I’d be used to this by now :P ), as though I standout somehow.  However, eating right is really important to me so I think this is something I will just need to work on.

You cannot be all things to all people. Be unique. Be different. Give to others what you want yourself. And do what you were made to do. -Robert Kiyosaki

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Balsamic Chocolate Cinnamon Apples (Paleo & Sugar-Free)

Main ingredients-

  • 4-5 medium to large apples
  • 4 tsp ghee (or butter)
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 tsp cocoa powder
  • 4 tsp syrupy balsamic vinegar (we used espresso balsamic from a local shop)

Optional ingredients-

  • 1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
  • 12oz Coconut milk (or heavy cream)
  • 1 cup coconut flakes
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

To make the apples-

  1. Peel and slice the apples as you would for an apple pie.
  2. Mix the cinnamon and cocoa powder with a pinch a salt in a small bowl.
  3. Melt the ghee in a pan over medium heat.
  4. Add the apples to the pan and cook until softened. They should start to juice a little bit and make a nice syrup in the pan.

    Apples Softened in Ghee

    Apples Softened in Ghee

  5. Add the cinnamon cocoa powder mixture and mix with the apples.
  6. Turn off the heat and add the balsamic. Mix until combined.

    Balsamic Chocolate Cinnamon Apples

    Balsamic Chocolate Cinnamon Apples

  7. Spoon into bowls. Optionally top with whipped cream and coconut flakes (below).

Optionally-

  1. Pour the coconut milk or heavy cream into a bowl with the almond extract. Whip until light and fluffy.
  2. Toast the coconut flakes in a pan over medium heat. Once lightly browned (watch closely- they will burn pretty fast) remove from the pan and toss with salt and cinnamon. (from The Clothes Make the Girl)
The Finished Product

The Finished Product

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Paleo, Not Yet My Style

I realized this week why I’ve never done a diet before – they are hard.  I want to eat the foods I want to eat gosh darn-it.  I’m not sure if curiosity is enough motivation for a diet.  That being said, we are at least half way done and we are going to stick it out; neither of us are good at stopping something we start.

This past week I noticed a few things.

  1. I have a very strong emotional relationship to my food.  Food brings me a LOT of happiness and comfort; the preparation and devouring of deliciousness is meant to be shared with family and friends.  This diet is hard because I leave out ingredients that I feel would add texture and taste to elevate a dish.
  2. I have slightly more energy in the afternoons.  I’m not sure if this is because we switched to decaf coffee in the morning or because we aren’t getting the carb spike and drop after lunch or maybe both.
  3. I am now half way done and I still feel light headed if I don’t eat enough.  Also if I workout and don’t eat enough this makes me really sad (I actually started crying after a run the other week because I was hungry).  Thus far, cutting out grains has not changed these aspects of my energy or emotional levels.
  4. Dinners paired water do not taste as good as dinners paired with wine.
  5. Eating only steak chili for dinner is not good for the belly.

Our meals this week focused on comfort foods since that is what we missed.  We made Italian sausage and peppers one night which sedated my Italian comfort food itch.  Another night we made taco salad which is one of our go to meals.  With both meals we missed the bread/corn aspect for soaking up the sauce or adding crunch, but the meals were good and satisfying.

To make the sausage and peppers I cut 1.5lbs hot Italian sausage and 1.5lbs mild Italian sausage into about 1-2 inch slices.  Then I sliced 6 bell peppers and 1 onion.  I smashed 8 cloves of garlic.  I tossed everything together with olive oil, salt, and pepper and baked for about 45 min on 350.

For the taco salad we cooked chicken with cumin, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper (ground beef or steak could easily be substituted).  I browned a sliced onion, 2 sliced poblano peppers, a diced jalapeno, and 2 sliced bell peppers in a dry pan until soft.  We put the meat and pepper mixture over lettuce.  Daniel topped his salad with an avocado and I topped mine with black olives.

Onto the Paleo home stretch!

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Holiday Budgeting 2012

How did we do budgeting in November and December 2012?  We did awesome on our holiday spending, but still struggled with grocery bills.

We set a gift giving budget and were actually able to come in below the amount.  How?  We made gifts with some help from pinterest.  We made chai tea mix, peppermint hot chocolate, and homemade moisturizer with bulk supplies bought from Amazon.  We also focused on gifts that people would use.  I suppressed the feeling that I needed to buy *something* for person x just because I didn’t buy them enough.  Unless people were just being nice, the homemade gifts were a huge hit and I’m excited to see what we do next year.

Moisturizer, Peppermint Hot Chocolate, and Chai Tea

In November we budgeted $120 for everyday groceries and $50 for Thanksgiving groceries.  We spent $260 on everyday and $60 on Thanksgiving.  What put us over on Thanksgiving was homemade fruit punch with real juices instead of Hawaiian Punch so we were pretty close on Thanksgiving.  In December we spent $270 on groceries.  Obviously we either need to increase our grocery budget or find a way to cut back on food purchases.

For January we are doing a Whole30 diet so we will be buying a ton of fresh produce.  I think sticking to a grocery budget will be more difficult, but we have implemented some changes.  We increased our food budget to $300; this also includes any food for homemade dog food.  Homemade dog food costs about $100 a month leaving about $200 for us to spend on groceries a month.  We also started a grocery price book to track the price of produce and where we can purchase certain staples, like bell peppers, the cheapest.  This will also help when the summer farmer’s markets roll around for us to know the price difference.  Finally we decided to focus our organic produce purchases on the dirty dozen; we will only be buying organic produce on this list to start.

 

We now use an Excel budgeting template to track our spending.  In 2012 we used a google doc that became increasingly messy and complex so I’m excited about the change.  After the past 3 months of budgeting we identified 3 new high spend categories and added these to the budget.  We added a bulk category to track bulk meat and Sam’s Club purchases,  a car parts category, and a home category.

We have some bigger expenses coming up in the next few months so I hope we can stick to our budget!

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Paleo Style 2013

We decided to start off the New Year with a Whole 30, basically a paleo diet focusing on quality meats and lots of veggies and no grains, legumes, dairy or alcohol.  Although coffee is allowed with the Whole30 we decided to minimize caffeine; we switched to decaf coffee and limited our tea drinking to herbal and green teas.

Why?  We were already avoiding processed foods and home cooking most our meals, yet paleo enthusiasts claim that by removing grains we would feel even better.  We wanted to test this out ourselves since we already were eating so healthy.  Also I need to eat every 3 hours or so otherwise I start to feel light headed.  If I didn’t eat pasta for a few days in a row I would start to feel depressed and grumpy.  I’m curious if avoiding these foods will help me balance out my moods and minimize my snacking.

What were we eating before?  We were already eating extremely healthy compared to the average American diet – we read all labels to avoid processed foods, ate only pasture raised meats, and ate a lot of vegetables.  We rarely went out to eat and unless we carefully chose a restaurant that was close to our home cooked diet our bellys told us something was off.  We read and followed much of what was discussed in Nourishing Traditions.  We were only a couple of steps away from a paleo diet, but we still ate minimal amounts of pasta, rice, homemade bread, and unprocessed sugars.  The pasta we ate contained nothing but flour (a lot of pastas have extra stuff added for some reason) and was usually whole wheat.  The amount of pasta was minimal compared to the sauce, vegetables, and meat we were eating the pasta with.  The homemade bread used quality flour from Bob’s Red Mill or Arthur’s and the sourdough was a starter that we created and let grow.  Most of the sugars we ate were unprocessed (honey and maple syrup), but there was an occasional piece of chocolate or bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola.   I’d argue that our consumption of pasta, bread and sugars was as healthy as it possibly could be, so I’m curious if we’ll notice a difference.

What have we been eating?  I’ve been eating a lot of eggs, 4 a morning, usually with kale, red pepper and chorizo.  This is going to have a change; we buy pasture eggs meaning they cost over $5.00 a dozen.  After some quick math we calculated that we would spend $50 just on my egg consumption for the rest of the month.  This doesn’t really help with budgeting and keeping our grocery bill low.  I’m implementing a new breakfast plan this week where I’ll switch to 2 eggs, some fruit, some sausage, and some sweet potato.  For lunch we have been eating more than before; usually a salad with a protein plus leftovers from the night before.  Finally for dinner we have been making a lot of meals from Melissa Joulwan’s cookbook Well Fed and thus far have loved everything we made (cauliflower rice is a current favorite!).  Daniel started making some homemade sauerkraut since fermented foods (besides sourdough bread) were something we were missing in our diet before.

 Typical breakfast of 4 eggs, sausage and vegetables. Cinnamon Beef Stew from Well FedIMG_2507

What are our goals?  My goal is to see if my energy level and mood stabilize by removing grains.  I’ve never been one to track my weight or waist size and I know Whole30 says that losing weight shouldn’t be a goal of the program, but we decided to track our weight and waist/hip sizes just to see if the diet makes a difference one way or another.  My goal isn’t to gain or lose weight or inches but to see if there is a noticeable difference.

What’s so hard about this?  The food I miss the most so far is dairy.  Morning coffee doesn’t taste as good without some milk added to it and I absolutely love cheese.  I miss the creamy texture that milk and cheese add to foods.  I’m also having a bit of a hard time with breakfast; I was a huge muesli fan before starting the diet.  Daniel said that he misses sugar the most.  I have to say that I ate a whole grapefruit this morning and it tasted pretty darn sweet to me.  I guess my sweet tooth is adjusting to a lack of sugar.  The other concern we have is sticking to our monthly food budget but we have been trying to buy produce that is on sale or less expensive at the grocery store and we will be minimizing my egg consumption.  The final challenge is figuring out what to eat when traveling for work; I will be going to Redlands, CA for 3 days with a few coworkers and will need to find Whole30 approved foods when we go out to eat.

Our experiment lasts until February 1st.  Check back for a summary of our results after that.

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Don’t Throw That Away!

A significant part of budgeting is learning how to re-purpose, reuse and not waste.  Now that Thanksgiving has passed and I still have a ton of food in my fridge, I need ways to make sure that it doesn’t go to waste.  Here are three foods that I have reused from my Thanksgiving meal.

1.  Heavy Cream

It is hard to beat homemade pie with homemade whipped cream.  Depending on how much whipped cream you use on your pie, there might be some heavy cream leftover.  If you have a mixer (and I would hope you do if you made homemade whipped cream!), it is remarkably easy to make butter from the leftover cream.  Leave the cream in the mixer for a few minutes longer than you would for whipped cream.  Eventually the liquid (buttermilk) and solids (butter) will separate.  Once separated, turn your sink on to cold, pick up the butter and squeeze it under the cold running water.  What you want to do is remove any remaining buttermilk from the butter.  When you are done you can salt, wrap in parchment paper and freeze or use immediately.  As for the buttermilk save it for delicious buttermilk waffles or pancakes on the weekend!

2.  Egg Shells

If you have a dog, egg shells can make an excellent mineral supplement.  Every time I use eggs, I place the shells on foil in my toaster oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Then I place them in a ziploc bag in my freezer to eventually process.  I use a Magic Bullet to grind the shells into a fine powder that I then sprinkle over Desi’s breakfast or dinner.  This is a great way to avoid buying expensive supplements for your dog.

If you don’t have a dog, egg shells can help make great compost!

3.  Cheese Rinds

Again, if you have a dog then cheese rinds or slightly old cheese make excellent dog treats.  I almost never buy dog treats anymore, Desi just gets the old bits of cheese that I don’t want to eat as his treats.  This is an easy and cheap way to give your dog healthy treats.

If you don’t have a dog, cheese rinds can be added to soups to add some additional flavor to the broth.  Often it will just dissolve into the soup.  This works especially well with hard Italian cheeses such as Parmesan.